


the love that i gave / wasted on a nice face

by yesravenreyes (notsmokingcamellights)



Series: 18 Cases of Everybody Loves Clarke [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clarke x Alcohol, Drinking & Talking, Drinking to Cope, Excessive Drinking, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-22 02:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3710854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsmokingcamellights/pseuds/yesravenreyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of eighteen oneshots about Clarke Griffin and how certain people fell in love with her. Clarke has been heartbroken for approximately a year and two months. The last nine days of this time period was spent drunk and rambling at ungodly hours to a bartender named Lexa. For the record, she thinks Clarke is being extremely rude.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the love that i gave / wasted on a nice face

Case 1: Lexa / Clarke

“I’m a bartender and I have to cut you off after a certain amount because you’re drinking to forget your ex and I end up calling you a cab AU”

**December 1, 2015**

“Good to go, Lexa?”

“Just a sec,” you tell Anya (or rather, Anya’s raised eyebrows), because O forgot to thoroughly clean out the shot glasses before ending her shift again and you’ve surprisingly lost count of how many times she’s done this. Usually she would mumble something about seeing some boy named Lincoln, and she’s out the door before you can get Indra on her ass right this second (not like she listens to you, considering the fact that within a few days after O got hired, Indra decided to give her second-in-command-when-it-comes-to-the-shot-glasses duty or something. _The girl will learn,_ she told you, _if Anya was able to toughen you up, this one will be no problem_ ). Besides that though, O usually gets everything else done just fine, therefore the shot glass complaint just gets you copious amounts of shade from Indra. With Anya’s position soon vacant following her relocation to their newer branch down south of Washington by the end of the month, she already selected you ages ago to take up after her. Reminding O of shot glass cleaning is definitely a priority bumped higher up the list in this respect…right after your several other priorities get it together. 

“I guess you’re closing up again, huh?”  
“Yup,” you respond, knowing that if Anya’s glares were capable of emitting high pitched noises, your ears would pick up on frequency right about now. Sometimes you can feel your right ear twitch, just thinking about it. It almost bothers you more than the minuscule traces of Cuervo on the rim of the _Cuervo Nation_ shot glass you’re cleaning, which you’re pretty sure you served to that extremely loud businessman a few hours ago. “Night, Anya.”

She leaves without saying goodbye, which clearly isn’t a good sign. Before you can think of something to make up for this though, you hear a familiar voice ring across the bar. As if on cue, you close your eyes for a few seconds as something in you dies once again.

Initially, you didn’t think Clarke would be a problem. Clarke was cute. Stubborn and talkative, with the drinking capacity of an elephant probably, but still cute. She had the whole California princess thing going on with her blue eyes and blonde hair, and you would probably be more interested in her if, after the sixth consecutive night of her getting semi-trashed all over Anya’s bar, she would talk about something apart from this dude named Finn Collins. You have never met him before in your life, and judging from the entirety of his life story so far as narrated by Clarke, you would never want to. You think about knowing any of the characters in Clarke’s sordid break-up tale in real life, and you cringe. 

“Usual,” she grunts, taking her goddamned seat right in front of you and shrugging her coat off to the side. _Maybe I should smile_ , you think, and it doesn’t take you a second longer to change your mind.

“I would like to ask you to leave.” 

“What?”

“You heard me,” you reply, and your hands almost find their way to your hips. You remember that you aren’t Anya, that her mannerisms aren’t yours, and they rest solidly on the counter instead. You hope you look serious enough to finally kick this girl out of the bar. “You have to leave.”

“And why the fffuck is that?” she shoots back, and you almost laugh at this. You’ve barely known Clarke Griffin for two weeks and yet tipsy definitely meant she started slurring her ‘fucks’.You realize you don’t really know exactly where she pre-games (not like you care, of course), and before you can think up some Freudian explanation for the fuck-slurring, she starts up again.

“Do you know how long I’ve been coming here, Lex?” she smiles.

“Nine days,” you reply, and resist the urge to sigh deeply. You’ll just get sleepier if you do. And when the fuck did she start calling you ‘Lex’? “I counted.”

“Fffucking A you did,” she slurs, right before extending her arm and - _Jesus fucking Christ -_ swiping a bottle of Cuervo from right under you, taking the shot glass in your free hand along with it. “I’m paying for this, by the way,” she adds, tipping the entire shot down before you could say another word. Unbelievable. 

“I’m serious, Clarke,” you say, staring her down and hoping she isn’t drunk enough to actually glaze over this. “You’ve been coming here precisely at closing time, refusing to leave for hours. I’ve had to lie to my boss about closing up on time and it isn’t like I get paid extra for keeping everything open for longer than necessary.”

“But I pay you,” she protests, actually pouting. _Is this real?_ you silently ask, to God maybe. 

“We both know that doesn’t count,” you say, hoping for some comprehension from her end.Judging from how she obviously doesn’t know whether to make eye contact with you or the middle of your forehead, you have to elaborate a little. “Like, it doesn’t officially count, at least. Besides, I kind of already know the full story.”

“Like hell you do,” she spits, and before she can reach out to get her own drink again, you swiftly bat her hand away and fill her glass yourself. If she really refused to budge, she would have to do this your way. 

“Try me,” you reply, and this time, you smile. 

“No problem,” she says, taking the shot from your hand. She folds her arms, rests them on the counter, and it begins.

“Bentley.”

“His. First time you had car sex, ever.”

“Art supply store.”

“Discovered in some abandoned hippie trip you guys both took. He sketched you and you sketched him.”

“November 2015.”

“First anniversary. You found out his girlfriend has been training with NASA, hence him getting with you in her absence.”

“Gas pumps.”

“You had trouble with yours, and he helped you. First meeting. Easy.”

“Arkers.”

“You root for the same hockey team. He oddly kept taking you to games even though they haven’t won against the Grounders for three years.”

“Have so.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Have not.”

The both of you carry on for more than a few minutes, Clarke giving you everything from specific dates to articles of clothing. You nail them all and get more confident as you do so, much to Clarke’s immediate frustration. Apparently, she’s an extremely sore loser and perhaps that’s partially what keeps you going. As the hours pass by, the both of you fail to notice one of your hair ties missing from your wrist, having found its way on Clarke’s head to support a loose bun and the unfortunate amount of empty shot glasses on the counter you will definitely have to clean and sort out later. Eventually, Clarke gives up.

“Holy shit,” she breathes, tucking a loose strand of hair behind one ear. “That bad, huh?”

“Yup,” you answer. “You were kind of on a roll for nine straight days. Now if you’ll excuse m-“

“Wait,” she says, grabbing your arm. You frown visibly at the sudden contact, but once Clarke has her sights set on a story, you don’t really have a choice but to hear the end of it. “Since you pretty much know everything, I actually came here to ask for advice. Something different came up.”

Biting her lip, Clarke brings out her phone. After finding precisely what she was looking for, she hands it over to you. Her hands are shoved deep in the pockets of her jeans, as if steeling herself from taking her phone back. It doesn’t take you long to read the message, and your eyes are slightly widened in disbelief when you set the phone on the counter.

“Clarke, you can’t possibly be considering—“

“I already have been, yeah,” she says bitterly, and her smile is the saddest of hers you’ve seen. “I’ve sort of wanted us to get back together since the week after the break-up, and now that he’s the one who bothered to ask…”

“You think that, somehow, since he’s bothering to take initiative and finally own up to his actions, everything will be all sunshine and rainbows from here on out.”

She looks at you, visibly taken aback. “Hey, I didn’t—“

“I know that look, Clarke,” you say, as your heart begins to sink. Yet again, you contemplate sending her out for good this time, telling her that she’s way too drunk to be thinking seriously about anything, that drinking is only best so you can shut up and suck it up sober. Looking at her, you wonder if, two years ago, you looked like you wanted someone to cut you off, to tell you that things could change. That they were possible. The smile you give her doesn’t come easily. “You want to make the easy choice even though the harder one is what you feel is the right one to make.” 

“How is it possible to even gauge that?” she asks, and her tone is one you are unfortunately, incredibly familiar with. You take a deep breath before answering, hoping that the conversation will not head in the direction you have in mind. Like an idiot, you slip up anyway.

“From a past relationship, I went by three things after it ended,” you say, taking the empty shot glasses with you. “Risk, commit, move on.”

“Holy shit,” Clarke replies, and you’re glad her attention is focused on you and is no longer preoccupied with anything that has to do with getting more alcohol. “No offense, but I hope you aren’t throwing some Rick Warren BS up my alley with this, man.”

“Clarke, do you want advice or not?” you ask, pointedly. “And for the record, I couldn’t get past two pages of Warren in high school. This doesn’t look like a Warren face.”

“Fair enough,” she sighs, waving a hand for you to continue. “Explain your thing.”

“it is what it is,” you begin, quickly cleaning the glasses up as you go. “Think of any martial arts or self-defense class you took, if any. Every opening is a risk you take, and committing to that risk can only take you as far as that risk itself will. Knowing how long you can commit to that opening is key to winning the fight.” You’re thinking of Rousey. Pacquiao. Anything to keep you distracted, yet still on-point. “Sometimes one opening can guarantee you a win. Sometimes it’s simply a gateway to another one.”

“What if I don’t regret making that opening?” she asks, picking at a stray piece of wood jutting out of the counter. You think about how easy it would be for her to remove it, but she doesn’t. “That, despite beating myself up over it, it’s still a choice I wouldn’t take back?”

“I didn’t say anything about regret playing into the picture,” you reply gently, and it’s a miracle how you’ve managed to still look like you’ve pulled your shit together up until this point. Looking into Clarke’s eyes, they remind you of the deep sea, and you wonder if she’s ever been afraid of swimming. “Regardless, you’re the only one who can gauge how long you can hold.”

_Apparently,_ you think, _an awfully long time._ She tells you how Finn broke things off between the two of them on an impromptu Skype call after he crammed a “horrendously comprehensive” History final paper. Clarke never got to tell you this part, and the way she’s talking to her hands is already telling. She can’t remember the last thing she even told him, only that she disconnected the call by shutting her laptop down and vowing never to speak to him again. Clarke appears to struggle for a bit, perhaps thinking that there’s still more she has to say - _there has to be -_ but instead, she smiles and thanks you, briefly squeezing your hand. Oddly, you feel proud of her, and you wonder what’s come over you.

“Fuck,” she breathes, and before you know it, she’s sitting on the floor. “Shit, I can’t stand.”

“Hold on, easy,” you say, putting her arm around you and using your free hand to secure her waist as you prop her up on her feet.“If you puke on me, I will literally kill you.”

“Literally,” she says, laughing. You’re rolling your eyes and you don’t catch her staring. Minutes later, you’ve hailed down a cab and memorized its plate number, Anya’s bar safely closed for the night behind you.

“Hey, before I…before I go,” she starts, a hand on your shoulder and the other on the cab’s open door. “I’m too far gone to bother asking this sober, but who the hell taught you all this shit?”

“Well, no one did, but um,” you start, and you think of Clarke in all her drunken bravery, stumbling over words and pent-up emotions just to talk to someone she barely knew about someone else who hurt her. Her eyes meet yours again and you wonder how you ever thought she would be afraid of drowning. 

“Her name was Costia,” you say, the first time in years you’ve said her name without your voice breaking. “Long story short, she was a journalist, assigned to a place far from here to cover an exclusive story. Doctors told us that she died less than a second after a sniper’s bullet exited her head.”

“Shit, I’m… I’m sorry,” she says, meaning it. She doesn’t bother to try to say anything further, and you’re relieved with how promptly she understood.

“It’s alright,” you reply. “I am, too.”

“So, I take it you’re not gonna—“

“I’m really not.”

“Right,” she says, looking at the cab driver and back to you. “Hey, c’mere.”

She reaches for your neck and pulls you close to her, your foreheads touching. You think of how warm her head feels compared to the rest of Washington on your skin, and you’re suddenly well aware of how you would rather not go home alone tonight.

“Finn and that sniper?” she says, looking right at you. “Fuck ‘em.”

The relief that floods through you is immediate. You picture Clarke laughing right that second, her breath sharp and visible against the cold. “Yeah, fuck ‘em.”

 

You go out for dinner that weekend, and Clarke is still ridiculously embarrassed about the fact that she asked you out by leaving you a post-hangover message on your answering machine. She attempts to cover this up by making fun of you for still having an answering machine. You retaliate a week later while you’re at the beach, squirting her point-blank in the face with a water gun.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title came from "I Wanna Get Better" by Bleachers. Their little spiel in the middle was inspired by a scene from a Filipino rom com called "That Thing Called Tadhana." If you want to, hit me up at yesravenreyes.tumblr.com. All prompts are grabbed from tumblr posts, unless stated otherwise.


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